Learning to love radically. World changer.

Nuggets of Wisdom | 90 Days

Wow. I never thought I could get here. This is what 90 days of continuous sobriety feels like: gratitude, contentment, and clarity. “Overwhelmed” doesn’t even begin to cut it. On day 1, if you had told me that day 90 was right around the corner and that my life was going to change for the better, I would’ve first scoffed in disbelief, but then I would have begged you to tell me how I could do it. The maintenance piece of recovery is something I could never get. I chronically relapsed before the 60-day mark for years. Today, the fellowship of AA, the 12 Steps, and my higher power are what are keeping me sober. I am nowhere near perfect, but that’s not what recovery demands from me. It demands progress, not perfection.

I take my journal into every AA meeting. Looking back through it, the most beautiful words are not my own. The beauty is found in the little nuggets of wisdom I wrote down that another alcoholic spewed out during a meeting. That’s what I want to share with you all, because their words are part of what is changing me. Yes, I have had bad days in my recovery. Really bad days. But these nuggets of truth are part of why I was able to get through them without a drink or a drug.

Day 5.Put everything in God’s hands and you’ll start to see God’s hands in everything. When I’m sober the lights are on and I’m home.

Day 6.It is okay to not understand God.Alcohol is never the answer. It doesn’t solve problems, it creates them.Act your way into better thinking.

Day 7.Take your time with the steps. That is how you respect your recovery.If I have to convince myself that it’s okay to do something, then I have no business doing it.

Day 8.Check your motives.If I don’t change, I’ll drink or put a bullet in my head.My first thought is usually wrong.

Day 9.Never stop working with others.

Day 10.My work doesn’t have to be perfect. Just honest.

Day 11.I was a problem drinker. I drank when I had problems and couldn’t admit that the drinking was causing the problems.
Take the alcohol away from an alcoholic and they still have the “ic.”
When I drink because of what someone else did, that’s like me saying, “I’m going to drink, but hope that you die.”

Day 12.Gotta be somewhere. Might as well be here.

Day 13.I don’t need to analyze or understand everything. Just let it be.I don’t ever have to get sober again. Go to meetings, don’t hurt myself, and don’t hurt others.Anything I put in front of my recovery I will lose.

Day 14. Don’t just keep coming back. Stay.
Be careful with saying, “I got this,” because alone, you don’t.
Trying to pray is praying.
Sobriety is the launching pad for recovery

Day15.I can’t control the people I’ve hurt.It’s okay to admit that life is fucking hard. It’s fucking hard.

Day 16.My famous last words are always, “Fuck it.”

Day 17.Feelings are not fact.If you can’t sleep, read the Big Book out loud. It’ll put you right to sleep!

Day 18.I can’t get sober when I’m playing God.I didn’t come into the rooms to find God. I came here to stay sober. I found my higher power along the way.

Day 19.Change negative thinking into gratitude.Who I am today is the good, bad, and indifferent of my past, but it all led me to AA.Be grateful to wake up sober.

Day 20.As long as I keep coming back I will grow.AA is monkey see, monkey do.Recovery is joy.

Day 21.God is doing for me what I could not do for myself.My biggest obsession now is learning how to be happy, joyous, and free.I don’t have to struggle if I admit that I am powerless.

Day 22.Acceptance starts with realizing that I cannot control everything.Cancel all reservations.

Day 24.It’s tempting to think that I’m safe to drink again because life is alright. It’s alright because I’m sober!

Day 26.I get to be sober.Without acceptance and surrender, the alcoholic will drink again.

Day 27.I have a village of people supporting me.

Day 28.I’m either working towards a drink or working away from one.There are two kinds of business: my business and none of my business.
What are the odds that what I want is my higher power wants? Slim as fuck. So stop freaking out.

Day 29.I am in a room full of people who drank like I did. I am not alone.

Day 30.Quality of sobriety over quantity of sobriety.

Day 31.No matter what, don’t drink.
AA is a room full of bobble heads.

Day 32.Let go and let God.

Day 34.My higher power grows with my sobriety. Just keep asking, “Give me the strength and courage to do the next right thing.”

Day 37.The delusion that I am like other people needs to be smashed.The grace of God bounces off of these walls.

Day 39.Do not be discouraged.My addiction wants me drunk, but it’ll settle for miserable.If I’m uncomfortable, it’s usually because I’m thinking too much about myself.

Day 41.I have to give up my internal narrative about how the world should run.

Day 42.Recovery offers me the stuff of my dreams.

Day 43.Isolation is a form of pride.

Day 44.I kept hoping that all of this could work for me.

Day 47.Alcoholism is progressive, but so is recovery.The last substance I put down, is the first thing I’ll pick up if I go back.Put as much energy into your recovery as you did your drinking.

Day 48.Fucking appreciate the work you’re putting in.

Day 50.I like waking up instead of coming to.

Day 54.I get to participate in life now.The present is a gift. Accept hardship as a pathway to peace.

Day 55.Maximum helpfulness is my goal.I am a walking example of recovering working.
My purpose is to stay sober and help the alcoholic who still suffers.

Day 56.Improvement will continue to come as long as I don’t drink.Honesty without kindness is cruel and kindness without honesty is codependent.

Day 57.My peace is proportional to how surrendered I am.I cannot do this by myself.

Day 58.Not every time I drank, did I get into trouble, but every time I got into trouble, I had been drinking.Sometimes our actions are how we show gratitude, especially when our words don’t mean shit.

Day 59.The more I practice gratitude, the more I want recovery.Gratitude is a state of being.

Day 60.Be honest and withhold nothing.

Day 61.I did not get sober to be miserable.

Day 62.Jesus, Muhammad, step aside. I had to get rid of the middle man.

Day 63.I’ve got shit to do, too. But my recovery has to come first.

Day 64.When I worry, it’s because I think I’m bigger and badder than I am. Stay right sized.

Day 65.It’s okay to not feel top-notch. Say, “Fuck you addiction,” and keep going.

Day 66.Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is the present. Enjoy the gift.All I can do is all I can do.Keep your head where your feet are.If I put my left foot in yesterday and my right foot in tomorrow, I’ll be pissing on the present.I wonder what a beer or a hit would taste like? Hmmm, death. Broken relationships. Hopelessness. Don’t test it.
Sobriety is my only chance at peace.

Day 68.Keep this simple.If something is on my mind, I’ve got to do something about it.

Day 69.When I suit up and show up one day at a time, well, that’s a hell of a job for an alcoholic.If I’m asking “why,” then I am still fighting.

Day 72.You could pour alcohol down a normal person’s throat and they won’t become addicted. That is what’s different about you and I.

Day 74.If I try to do this on my own, I will fall flat on my face.

Day 75.Nothing happens on accident.Surrender and chill. The world is not going to fall apart.I can only change me.

Day 77.If I want something to change, I have to change something.I can plan for the future without setting an outcome. Outcomes that don’t pan out lead to disappointment and resentment.

Day 82.The gift of desperation is what brought me here.I cannot afford to be angry and bitter.Sobriety has become my priority.

Day 83.Don’t let up.

Day 85.As an alcoholic, I am uniquely qualified to help another alcoholic.Treatment centers never worked for me, because I was left alone with my spiritual malady afterwards.
I am so imperfect.

Day 87.Drinking never made anything better and it never will.

Day 89.There is a need to share my suffering.I did not get sober on my own.My life is chaos when I try to run it on my own.Look for blessings in loss.

I am blown away by what I am learning and how I am changing. I am amazed that I longer obsess over my next fix. Not a single one of us alcoholics/addicts did anything to deserve recovery. It was given to us freely. I am not taking any of this for granted. I’m ready for more, one day at a time.